hMa and Library Design

05/26/2016

hMa approaches the design of the Queens Library through the idea of the garden. This page shows three different configurations of the garden.

The Hortus Conclusus (Latin: enclosed garden) is an essential aspect of the history of modern western garden design. Hortus Conclusus in the Medieval era referred to an enclosed, private garden.

In Queens, there is a contemporary history of enclosed ‘community gardens’, which are also enclosed gardens. In the Queens gardens, small plots are divided between the community, and each becomes a landscape portrait of its owners.

In 2011 landscape architect Piet Oudolf collaborated on a contemplative walled garden for the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion: a contemporary reinstatement of the original Hortus Conclusus: a walled garden for contemplation.

hMa is designing the Queens Library as a Walled Garden where visitors enjoy peaceful contemplation of ideas, within a garden.

Queens Library : a Hortus Conclusus for study and contemplation

Piet Oudolf designs rivers of grasses. In the Library, we see Rivers of Grasses as Books, with narratives made from letters. Hollis Library begins a conversation between gardens - human cultivations of Nature - and books - human cultivations of Ideas - with walls, floors, and ceilings that reference the walled garden of the Hortus Conclusus. The Garden is referenced

through materials, textures, and colors on the floors, ceilings, and walls.

Queens Library : a repository for books/ an escape from the urban realm

Hortus Conclusus includes pathways for walking, moving and thinking. hMa’s DWi-P opened to the public in 2014: a building that delaminates into gardens with paths that make the building envelop feel invisible on its site. DWi-P gives the sense of walking in nature both inside and outside the building.

At hMa's Queens Library, paths use natural colors to lead visitors from entry, to circulation desk, adult reading room, teens area, children’s library, and to the community room. hMa’s palette is based on an idea of movement through nature, from they entry, and through the library. Visitors are led from entry to the circulation desk by a moss-covered, wood wall that passes from the entry door, through the vestibule, to the circulation desk. The desk is designed to reference colors of flowers and grasses.The Library floors reference nature’s grasses, flowers, tree bark, and earth. Areas in the adult and children’s libraries are anchored as lawns, using ivy (adult’s), and grass (child’s) in the sitting and work areas. In the teen area, seating and work areas are more active, with stripes of flower references.

Sverre Fehn’s Nordic Pavilion is one of hMa’s typology references for the Queens Library. Nordic Pavilion, designed in 1962, is still used today for gallery exhibits representing Sweden, Finland, and Norway. The Pavilion focuses on nature, with an open grid-roof of criss-crossing, thin, concrete beams, designed to simulate the effects of dappled sunlight passing through tree branches. The neutral whiteness of the concrete pavilion encircles, and emphasizes trees that grow through the roof.

At Queens Library, hMa also applied principles of movement through nature, based on ideas developed in their Master Plan for Battery Park City’s North Neighborhood. At BPC hMa used the the intertwining of nature, through the development of strategically located parks and green roofs, to develop a language of design based on nature and walking paths. hMa called the new grid developed at Battery Park City Woven Fabric. Woven Fabric defines cultivated green areas that weave the North Neighborhood together.

At Queens Library, hMa applies ideas about a woven fabric of nature-based materials through the library as a Hortus Conclusus: enclosed garden. The Hortus Conclusus includes the installation of mirrors above bookcases in the Child, Adult, and Teen reading rooms to create an illusion of a detached roof: the library as an exterior, walled garden.

Sitting Reading Thinking: the Space of Contemplation

Queens Library : a Hortus Conclusus for study and contemplation

hMa’s goal is to create the sense of a walled garden with edges defined by bookcases, and an interior filled with color and light. The Queens Library will be a garden for thinking and contemplation. The library’s walls are a barrier to the busy-ness of the urban street - an envelop that offers the peace and contemplation of the Hortus Conclusus.

07/11/2012

the new public face of the Pratt Design Center, posted Victoria Meyers architect

original entrance DeKalb Avenue

Victoria Meyers architect is pleased to present new images of Pratt Pavilion, a free-standing pavilion designed by hMa, opened in 2007. Pratt Pavilion unites two existing studio and classroom buildings on the Pratt Campus, and is the public face for the new Pratt Design Center. Pratt Design Center is the first academic center in the United States uniting Industrial Design, Fashion Design, Interior Design, and Graphic Design, under one roof. Pratt Pavilion links these programs through a bridge that sits to the south of the new Pratt Pavilion.

Pratt Pavilion is a floating stainless steel volume (see photos below) with custom steel panels provided by Milgo Bufkin metal fabricators. The pavilion houses a gallery for Pratt student and faculty work on its second floor, and is used regularly as a campus gathering space. The ground floor entry reveals the existing edges of the two original brick loft buildings that the pavilion joins together. The walls were cut and excavated to make room for the new pavilion. The area south of the glass entry is a new ‘Green Court’, designed by hMa to generate passive cooling and ventilation within the new Design Center. The Green Court makes a central focal point and gathering space for the new Center, and brings natural light to all classrooms.

Pratt Pavilion was designed to feel like a free-floating mass that visitors pass below to enter the Pratt Design Center. Above: a broken steel beam at Storm King Art Center, studied as a prototype for Pratt Pavilion.

The Courtyard as it appears today, above, and as it appeared at the time of the project, below. Pratt Pavilion was the first building in an overall Master Plan for the Pratt Institute Campus, which hMa also participated in. The Master Plan developed strategies to reorient buildings toward the Campus, move builidng entries from the surrounding streets, and to create a public image for Pratt buildings.

Books by hMa

Victoria Meyers: Designing With Light
New York Architects Victoria Meyers and Thomas Hanrahan believe that architecture is an environment, 'pure space', manifested in nature. The principals of hanrahanMeyers architects (hMa) have established themselves as unique visionaries, incorporating light and sound into their arresting designs of pure forms. Founded in 1987, the firm specializes in residences, art centers, and community spaces. They design spaces from a vision that connects visitors with the natural world.
www.designingwithlight.us

The Conservation FundAs part of our nature based vision for architecture, hMa gives a percentage of the firm’s annual revenues to nature initiatives. This year, hMa funded ‘Wildlife Corridors’, through the Conservation Fund. ‘Wildlife Corridors’ provide natural zones through cities and towns that link animals with adjacent nature preserves. This initiative is one of several cutting-edge planning initiatives that forward thinking architects will be adopting as we seek to harmonize human habitats with nature and create sustainable development.